With increases in global trade, ports, channels and other waterways are becoming increasingly busy. Additionally, ship owners, port authorities and others are increasingly trying to reduce delays in getting vessels from port to port and in getting the vessels into and out of port. Further, with the current and future concerns over terrorist threats, port, naval and other authorities are increasingly concerned about keeping track of vessels, flying and slow air-borne craft like helicopters that come within the field of view of surveillance.
Current surveillance systems for tracking ships are radar-based. An operator has a screen with a number of objects on it representing different ships. Either, the operator labels the object having identified the ship through verbal communication with the crew or else ships may be labelled automatically after having been identified by transponders on board the ships (e.g. the Automatic Identification System (AIS)). However, such existing systems tend to have blind spots, inability to measure vessel height inability to accurately classify the vessel and resolution limitations.